The way that the classic Mega Man franchise had adamantly remained as stylistically consistent as it did through its run on the NES was always one of the biggest points of contention for me when going through the games, not really feeling as if the sequels had added a whole lot that meaningfully justified them, instead feeling stagnant. As such, the breath of fresh air I felt when I moved over to Mega Man 7 was pretty immense, with the visual differences alone immediately setting a sort of precedent that this was going to be THE game in the series that gave me a stronger sense of appreciation on the whole, and in some ways, it honestly was exactly that, even if the differences were yet again rather minor compared to what they might have seemed. On the other hand, I feel like Mega Man 7 is a pretty interesting look into how greater hardware capabilities are able to shape how a game approaches its design, seeing what parts exactly stay consistent while also witnessing a lot of bits and pieces that could finally be better realised to further provide the desired experience.
The visual differences of this game are what immediately stand out to me as a huuuge improvement for the most part, with everything having such a strong sense of fluidity to them, everything bursting with a far more exaggerated sense of cartoonish charm while only very rarely feeling as if the extra movement got in the way of clarity in various forms, most notably the enemy telegraphs. I say very rarely because the one big exception to this is Mega Man himself feeling a bit too all over the place with his animations, getting into the motion and flopping around slightly too much for jumping to feel as consistent as it was back on the NES. It's not a huge deal overall because it's minor enough that you can get used to it with a bit of time but it's still something that can make things feel more perilous than they often should. In basically all the other cases though, I really appreciate the visual overhaul and what it does to breath further life into a lot of these stages, being able to have so much more moving objects in the background and foreground without running the risk of forcing the player to play a game at 2 FPS. This is especially cool in places like Turbo Man's stage where part of the level is dedicated to riding on the back of a giant truck down a race course, now having so much more energy behind it without feeling as if there was a stark disconnect between the pretty visuals and the elements you could actually interact with.
This is also the first game in the series where I felt like I was actually encouraged to explore a bit more as well, with a few miscellaneous quality of life changes such as being able to swap through boss weapons with the shoulder buttons combined with a lot more unique and intuitive triggers to find secrets. Experimentation really for the first time feels as if it was fully considered in a way that didn't feel especially contrived, not quite having the same braindead "secrets" as Mega Man 6 would have, but not being especially obtuse either, leaving this nice middle ground where it feels genuinely engaging to mess around and see what effect your weapons have on the world. The weapons themselves are definitely not the most varied they've ever been but practically all of them actually feel useful in what individual quirks they each have, and the aforementioned quality of life improvement of weapon swapping makes it easier than ever to move to them without wasting time in a pause menu as well, which actually manages to provide a bit more appeal to one of the core ideas behind a Mega Man game, the different experiences depending on boss order.
While I'm still not entirely sold on the sense of replayability behind these games, given that there are only so many ways one can approach a lot of these platforming situations regardless of the weapon selection they have, this is certainly the most convincing game for this idea that I've seen yet, with the amount of little secrets and additional paths potentially shaping your route through the stages in very overt ways. Also while the idea of only giving you access to four of the robot masters at the start and showing off the others once you beat the first lot seems like a bad idea thanks to how it reduces that initial choice a great deal, the way it's able to better contribute to a difficulty curve and proper sense of progression more than makes up for it in my eyes. It swaps out the feeling of going from 0 to 100 that the past games had with the transition into the wily stages and now provides a nice middle ground to better prepare you without having to take into account the idea of one of them being the first level that someone would enter.
At this point I've also just realised that I feel like I'd enjoy a lot of these games more if the Wily stages largely just, didn't exist, even though this one is less egregious than some previous entries. I feel like one of the big draws of this series for me personally is the rapid fire collection of unique environments and aesthetics thrown your way that don't have to coherently fit together, taking you on a journey through so many different, creative ideas. Contrasting this with the often deeply clinical and repetitive stages through the fortresses is instantly a huge mood killer that's made worse by how much less engaging it ends up being to play through for other reasons as well. The difficulty in Mega Man when it really ramps up almost never feels fully interesting, but more just annoying with the often silly precision it requires of you combined with being brutally unforgiving. The way these situations are chained together throughout a lot of the stages leads to a feeling unpleasant, everything feels like a challenge explicitly designed to mess you up rather than exploring a hostile environment that naturally wants you dead, and as such, the inherent artificiality in a lot of these levels rears its ugly head to a much greater degree. In this however it's mostly the bosses of the Wily stages that frustrate me the most, either being too erratic to feel as if there's a strategy greater than "just jump around and hope for the best", or being long, painful endurance tests. The final boss is both of these things to such a degree that I just want to find the main designer of it and have a stern talking to them, absolute garbage fire way to end the game even if it ultimately doesn't shape the experience as a whole too much for me.
In general, despite my complaints, I still would readily consider this to be my favourite game in the series so far, with the way it takes the ideas of the previous titles and expands upon a lot of them in ways that make it feel far more compelling. Nothing feels truly revolutionary, but it feels like there were a lot of more subtle design changes underneath it all to lead to a game that feels like it embraced the new possibilities it had with open arms while still remembering what it wanted to be. All my usual issues with the game are present enough that I don't outright love this as a whole, but it's certainly the closest I've been to doing so, and that surely has to count for something. Looking forward to MM8 considering that's apparently the one that shook things up the most.
The visual differences of this game are what immediately stand out to me as a huuuge improvement for the most part, with everything having such a strong sense of fluidity to them, everything bursting with a far more exaggerated sense of cartoonish charm while only very rarely feeling as if the extra movement got in the way of clarity in various forms, most notably the enemy telegraphs. I say very rarely because the one big exception to this is Mega Man himself feeling a bit too all over the place with his animations, getting into the motion and flopping around slightly too much for jumping to feel as consistent as it was back on the NES. It's not a huge deal overall because it's minor enough that you can get used to it with a bit of time but it's still something that can make things feel more perilous than they often should. In basically all the other cases though, I really appreciate the visual overhaul and what it does to breath further life into a lot of these stages, being able to have so much more moving objects in the background and foreground without running the risk of forcing the player to play a game at 2 FPS. This is especially cool in places like Turbo Man's stage where part of the level is dedicated to riding on the back of a giant truck down a race course, now having so much more energy behind it without feeling as if there was a stark disconnect between the pretty visuals and the elements you could actually interact with.
This is also the first game in the series where I felt like I was actually encouraged to explore a bit more as well, with a few miscellaneous quality of life changes such as being able to swap through boss weapons with the shoulder buttons combined with a lot more unique and intuitive triggers to find secrets. Experimentation really for the first time feels as if it was fully considered in a way that didn't feel especially contrived, not quite having the same braindead "secrets" as Mega Man 6 would have, but not being especially obtuse either, leaving this nice middle ground where it feels genuinely engaging to mess around and see what effect your weapons have on the world. The weapons themselves are definitely not the most varied they've ever been but practically all of them actually feel useful in what individual quirks they each have, and the aforementioned quality of life improvement of weapon swapping makes it easier than ever to move to them without wasting time in a pause menu as well, which actually manages to provide a bit more appeal to one of the core ideas behind a Mega Man game, the different experiences depending on boss order.
While I'm still not entirely sold on the sense of replayability behind these games, given that there are only so many ways one can approach a lot of these platforming situations regardless of the weapon selection they have, this is certainly the most convincing game for this idea that I've seen yet, with the amount of little secrets and additional paths potentially shaping your route through the stages in very overt ways. Also while the idea of only giving you access to four of the robot masters at the start and showing off the others once you beat the first lot seems like a bad idea thanks to how it reduces that initial choice a great deal, the way it's able to better contribute to a difficulty curve and proper sense of progression more than makes up for it in my eyes. It swaps out the feeling of going from 0 to 100 that the past games had with the transition into the wily stages and now provides a nice middle ground to better prepare you without having to take into account the idea of one of them being the first level that someone would enter.
At this point I've also just realised that I feel like I'd enjoy a lot of these games more if the Wily stages largely just, didn't exist, even though this one is less egregious than some previous entries. I feel like one of the big draws of this series for me personally is the rapid fire collection of unique environments and aesthetics thrown your way that don't have to coherently fit together, taking you on a journey through so many different, creative ideas. Contrasting this with the often deeply clinical and repetitive stages through the fortresses is instantly a huge mood killer that's made worse by how much less engaging it ends up being to play through for other reasons as well. The difficulty in Mega Man when it really ramps up almost never feels fully interesting, but more just annoying with the often silly precision it requires of you combined with being brutally unforgiving. The way these situations are chained together throughout a lot of the stages leads to a feeling unpleasant, everything feels like a challenge explicitly designed to mess you up rather than exploring a hostile environment that naturally wants you dead, and as such, the inherent artificiality in a lot of these levels rears its ugly head to a much greater degree. In this however it's mostly the bosses of the Wily stages that frustrate me the most, either being too erratic to feel as if there's a strategy greater than "just jump around and hope for the best", or being long, painful endurance tests. The final boss is both of these things to such a degree that I just want to find the main designer of it and have a stern talking to them, absolute garbage fire way to end the game even if it ultimately doesn't shape the experience as a whole too much for me.
In general, despite my complaints, I still would readily consider this to be my favourite game in the series so far, with the way it takes the ideas of the previous titles and expands upon a lot of them in ways that make it feel far more compelling. Nothing feels truly revolutionary, but it feels like there were a lot of more subtle design changes underneath it all to lead to a game that feels like it embraced the new possibilities it had with open arms while still remembering what it wanted to be. All my usual issues with the game are present enough that I don't outright love this as a whole, but it's certainly the closest I've been to doing so, and that surely has to count for something. Looking forward to MM8 considering that's apparently the one that shook things up the most.